


Make Hugs, Not War.

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: comment_fic, Cupid's name is Barachiel now; angel names are cool, Demon Bela Talbot, Feel-good, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Schmoop, Season Six; What Season Six?, Team Free Hugs, free hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barachiel discovers a secret weapon in the Heavenly civil war: free hugs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Hugs, Not War.

Barachiel counted the day that Dean Winchester punched him in the face as one of the worst days of his life.

He didn't understand who wouldn't, really. Angel vs. human or not, the Michael Sword packed a wallop with his fist, and more than that, it hurt Barachiel's feelings to think that he'd been trying to make someone happy and all he'd done was upset a powerful vessel.

Which went without saying that it was a _disgrace_. Not a huge one, but still a _disgrace_. Just to think of it, even — here he was, a Cupid (Cherub, Third-Class), an angel whose entire existence was predicated on making people happy, and getting them to fall in love, and seeing to it that misery, one of the Devil's greatest tools, found defeat in love, sweet love.

And he'd accidentally incited negative emotions. Not just any negative emotions, either, but the kind that compelled people to _violence_ , which was entirely antithetical to the _entire purpose of being a cherub_.

(Granted, in retrospect, Barachiel supposed that Famine had had more than a small effect on this, but his point still stood.)

Which was entirely why, with Heaven in the midst of civil war, he decided to throw himself behind neither Castiel nor Raphael — but an affectionate human, wearing a sandwich board that read, "FREE HUGS."

*** * ***

His first mark wasn't either of the Heavenly generals. Instead, Barachiel took on his favorite vessel and went to do his Father's love of _chesed_ proud by starting with some of the creatures who ranked the lowest on the universal chain of respect. Namely, a certain demon who went by _Heziah_ these days.

Finding her wasn't difficult at all — quite the contrary, it turned out easy enough that Barachiel had to pause and consider whether or not she'd known he was coming and set a trap. He knew that she knew about magic, talismans, and the various means of protecting oneself from unwanted parties... It didn't make sense, he figured, for her not to use any of her protective rituals.

But he trailed after her for two days and she never once noticed or made a move against him, so... maybe, he thought — _maybe_ everything would be okay.

On the third day of his quest, his mark took a hard turn down to Chicago and switched meat-suits once she got there, shucking off a blonde art history major from Hackensack in favor of a spritely community theater actress with fiery red curls and freckles splattered everywhere on her body that had seen sun in the past ten months. Following her through the city streets proved an endeavor only because Barachiel hadn't worn pants for so long in quite some time. (At that, the last time he'd done so had been in the Renaissance, and the breeches had been much more comfortable than these _denim blue jeans_ contraptions.)

She wandered past shops, through crowds, into and out of two different coffee shops — and finally, she ducked into an alley for a cigarette. Which really wasn't fair of her, Barachiel thought, getting tar and chemicals all over some poor innocent girl's lungs — not unless her meat-suit had been a nicotine addict first — but he had a higher purpose.

After a few minutes, she dropped the butt, stomped it out — and he made his charge. He came at her from behind and got his arms around her shoulders; without missing a beat, he pulled her into a tight embrace.

She didn't fight that — wriggled a bit, but didn't struggle — but she did spit, "There are better places to grab if you want to harass me, sweetie."

"It's okay, Bela," he cooed, leaning his cheek down by her neck. "I know what you did in Hell, and when you were alive, and I just want you to know that it's okay — you just did what you had to, or what you thought you had to do to survive, and even though I'm an angel, I really, really love you as one of our Father's creations, and whatever ever's happened to you, I think you're beautiful. That's why I'm here. Giving you a hug and trying to bring some love back into your life."

Silence. She stopped wriggling, at least, but when combined with how _quiet_ she got, that lack of action just made Barachiel's skin crawl.

"...I'm not the only one you're planning to accost, am I," Bela asked, her tone flat and resolute, certain of what she'd already decided to believe.

Which was _fair_ , because she was _right_.

Barachiel nodded and explained, "I saw this man with a sandwich board, and he was telling people all about how hugs are good for your health and I just got to thinking that, you know... it's not right that the Apocalypse is over and everybody's still miserable and upset about everything, and nothing's getting better, and—"

"If I agree to help you out—" In the moment she paused to take a breath, Barachiel feared what the note of urgency in her voice could mean. Had he had a heart of his own, it would have quivered in his chest and threatened to send his vessel into cardiac arrest. " _If_ I agree to help you with this... hugging cure of yours, will you let go of me."

Barachiel nodded.

Bela sighed. "Fine, I'm in."

*** * ***

Balthazar came next — and wriggled under Barachiel's hold even more than Bela had. She stood off to the side, smirking as she watched Balthazar trying his very best to get out of Barachiel's grasp. When he proved unable to fight the love on a physical level, Balthazar turned to bribery.

"Let me go and I'll... I'll find you a private tropical island full of beautiful, naked women."

Barachiel shook his head and held his brother tighter.

"...Beautiful, naked men?"

Bela snickered at that, but again, all Barachiel did was smile with the enraptured calm of a dog getting scratched in _all the right places_ , shake his head, and tried to shove Balthazar even closer to his chest.

Not that there was much further for Balthazar to _go_ , but it was the _effort_ , Barachiel thought, that really made his actions count.

That and the fact that Balthazar secretly liked being hugged — Barachiel knew he did.

"You can bluster aaaaall you want, brother," he cooed, "but _I'm so happy that you're alive_ —"

"Yes, yes, you've only said so fifty times in the past ten minutes."

"And I just love you _sooooo much_ —"

"How do I make this bloody _stop_?"

The note of desperation was probably something that Balthazar hadn't meant to let creep into his voice, and Barachiel couldn't _see_ the expression that he gave Bela — but it got her to grin for the first time that the Cherub had ever seen.

And she snickered again as she told Balthazar, "Not much. Just join the noblest cause to come about since the Apocalypse failed to happen."

Balthazar groused about it, even after he got released from the hug, but Barachiel _knew_ that, deep down, his brother was secretly ecstatic about this.

*** * ***

Hugging Bobby Singer was like hugging a puppy.

A very grumpy, fussy puppy who kept threatening to load his shotgun with holy oil-filled shells.

...well. Maybe it was more like hugging a timber wolf puppy.

But Barachiel still swooped in behind the grizzled hunter and pulled him into his chest, nuzzled at his neck, and told Bobby how much he _appreciated_ him.

"I know you feel like no one's listening, Bobby, but we are, and I promise that your sacrifices mean a lot to more people than yourself, and I'm _so proud_ of you and everything you are and everything you've done to keep the world safe—"

"This gonna go on much longer?" Bobby didn't put up any sort of fight, just hunched his shoulders and sounded like he had fifty-seven things he would have rather been doing. Maybe fifty-eight things. A lot of things, probably, and with the way the phones kept ringing, other people needed him to be doing things for them, too.

But Barachiel just _had_ to get the love out.

"No, I'm serious," Bobby snapped, after his fifteenth missed call. "Is this gonna go on much longer?"

Balthazar shrugged. "He usually lets you go if you sign up to join Team Free Hugs, so I would suggest doing that."

*** * ***

Getting two of the more difficult hugs required ingenuity, though. It also required, Barachiel decided, trapping himself in a ring of holy fire with Castiel and Raphael. Tricking the two of them into showing up was easy enough, and Bela stood at the outside of the circle, ready to put out the flames when their objective had been accomplished Castiel didn't fight the love, and for that, Barachiel had to hug him extra hard, and for an extra minute. That's what he promised General Trenchcoat McGrouchypants, anyway.

"Brother..." Castiel sighed, after no fewer than ten _objective_ "extra minutes" had gone by. "...Barachiel, this is. ...This is getting to be uncomfortable—"

Barachiel responded by tightening his hold on Castiel's shoulders, running a hand up and down his brother's back, and informing Castiel that he could get his body free of this if he hugged back. With a sigh, Castiel agreed — and Barachiel seized the opportunity to squeeze him tighter one last time.

Castiel got unceremoniously dropped, however, when Barachiel decided it was time to hug Raphael.

"I suggest that you end this foolishness immediately, Barachiel," the archangel intoned as though in prayer. "I can have you resigned to desk duty all too easily."

Barachiel smiled "I'll stop if you hug Caaaaaastiel and agree to stop this civil war business."

"When our traditions and our laws are on the line—"

"Everybody else wants to stop fighting, Raph." Barachiel pulled back ever so slightly, just so his brother could see him pout. "I mean... all your troops have hugged it out, and we're all tired of killing each other, and... why can't you and Cas just put your differences aside and have a nice _hug_?"

With a shared, begrudging sigh, both of the Heavenly commanders agreed to try things Barachiel's way.

In retrospect, he supposed that he should have expected the two of them to attempt strangling each other through the hug... but neither of them hurt the other too badly, and it ended the war, so he counted it as a victory, overall.

*** * ***

Now, comes the hardest part, the thing that all of Barachiel's work has been building up to.

Feeling the warm glow on his face, he looks over to Bela. She gapes and her eyes stay wide as she stares down at their intended target. When she looks back at Barachiel, there's none of her standard sarcasm, or even an attempt at looking superior. He hugs her again, and for the first time, she hugs him back. Both of them probably need it — the affection, anyway. Dean Winchester tried breaking their faces when they hugged him, and Sam seemed about as comfortable with it as he might have been with seeing any of his friends from Stanford again — but Barachiel had gotten both of them in the end.

And now he's bound for greater things, as dangerous as they are.

Purgatory's entrance should have closed up, Barachiel thinks, but instead, it's open and its unearthly light still radiates out at them. And since none of the monsters in it seem to have noticed... he and Bela are just going to have to bring the hugs Downstairs.

"Are we even remotely ready for this?" she asks, finally glancing back at him.

In a rare moment of realism, he admits, "Probably not."

"...And how many _things_ do you think are down there?"

"Plenty. ...Well. ...Rather kind of a lot? ...Lilith's one of them, too, and Crowley."

Bela shivers at the mention of her former mistress's name, scoffs at Crowley's, and despite the brave smirk she tries to put up, looks paler and more off-kilter than Barachiel's ever seen her look before. He reaches over and puts a hand on her shoulder. Without warning, she pulls him into an embrace that manages to be warm, even though it's like hugging a black-eyed popsicle.

"Just... don't do something completely idiotic and propose that we _split up_ , alright, Birthday Suit?"

Barachiel chuckles, nods, and holds her closer.


End file.
